Death, not a polite topic at nice people’s dinner parties, but why not? It happens to all of us sooner or later and you can’t escape it. Someone once said that you can’t escape taxes either, but as an ex-tax officer (thankfully ex) I can vouch for the fact that this is not strictly true, there are a lot of sneaky, conniving, dishonest, rich bastards out there ripping off you poor, but honest, snivelling, poor, ignorant wretches.
Back to death, it comes as a bit of a surprise to some, although the surprise lasts for only a few nano-seconds, they are the lucky ones. One second they’re happily shagging, gardening, running marathons or playing polo and the next whammo! Hello worms!
For others, it can take days, weeks or years, not so good! Even then, some welcome it with open arms, believing that they are heading off on a one way trip, to their own particular nirvana. Others have to be dragged off kicking and screaming by the grim reaper knowing that they’ve violated every commandment and are destined for the great perpetual toaster in the netherworld.
Personally, I would prefer an instantaneous to quickish one. I do not wish to be put on life-support and there is a slab of VB in my will, for anybody willing to kick the plug out, while nobody is looking.
I’d like to be turned into a little pile of ashes and kept in a sealed designer urn on the mantelpiece, so the family can put me in the centre of the dinner table, along with a nice vase of petunias on special occasions. The reason for sealing the urn is fairly obvious, it would ruin everybody’s day if some drunken sot sprinkled my ashes on the turkey thinking it was pepper.
Unfortunately, my family are, if not deeply religious, at least ankle-deep Catholics and will want to inter me rather than (b)urn me. There is also the fact that everybody is aware that you might be in a nice cedar casket with beautiful brass handles as you trundle along the conveyor belt. As soon as you disappear through the curtain, they whip you out of the casket into a cardboard job (to create a few more ashes) and whoopsy-doo! Stick ‘em in a nice little porcelain job, bought in bulk from Woolworths.
If I do have to be buried, I’d like to go in the new ecologically friendly way. Whack me in a hessian sack or at the very worst a recycled cardboard coffin and stick me vertically in the ground. Instead of a headstone they can plant a tree on top or next to me. A spreading Oak would be nice, but I would settle (literally and metaphorically) for a Ghost Gum, Weeping Willow or best of all a Sequoia (that bugger would last a thousand years, or at least until the illegal loggers snuck in).
Cheers for now,
SkyBlueSkull
http://keith-skellern.blogspot.com
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